Using Box2d to model rotating turret

Question

I would like to model a rotating "turret" on top of a tank-like object in 2D from the side view like pictured here:

tank with turret http://uofitorn.net/static/images/tankwithbox2dturret.png

Notice the faint outline of a gun protruding to the upper left courtesy of libgdx's debug renderer (the actual gun sprite is not being rendered).

How do I best implement this using Box2d? Should I use two bodies? If so, how? Or one body with two fixtures?

I tried using two bodies connected by a Revolute Joint, but the turret "gun" does not maintain a constant angle but instead rotates down until it is vertical and then just hangs there.

Or should I not model the turret aspect of the tank in box2d at all?

Answer 1

The approach using two bodies connected with a revolute joint is the best approach. It just sounds like you have already tried this but encountered a bug.

The simplest way to implement the rotating-towards-the-cursor part is to find the angle of the vector connecting the pivot point and the cursor, and call Body::setTransform on the turret every cycle. Use the following pseudo code as a starting point:

// pivotOffset is the displacement vector pointing from the turret body origin to the pivot point
// get the world co-ordinates of the pivot point
vector turretPivot = turretBody.getWorldPoint(pivotOffset);

// get the world co-ordinates of the cursor position
vector cursorPos = libgdxgetCursorPositionFunction();

// get the displacement vector between the cursor and the turret pivot
vector displacement = cursorPos - turretPivot;

// set the angle of the turret body to the angle of the displacement vector
turretBody.setTransform(turretBody.getPosition(),displacement.getAngle());

Alternatively, look at my Simple Solution in this related answer to see how this would work with a prismatic joint.